However, we shall convert
him yet; everything in its season.
The Board of Education puzzled over its end of it for a while. The
law did not say how big the playground should be, and there was
no precedent. No, there was not. I found the key to that puzzle,
at least one that fitted, when I was Secretary of the Small Parks
Committee. It was my last act as agent of the Good Government clubs
to persuade Major Strong to appoint that committee. It made short
work of its task. We sent for the police to tell us where they had
trouble with the boys, and why. It was always the same story: they
had no other place to play in than the street, and there they broke
windows. So began the trouble. It ended in the police-station and
the jail. The city was building new schools by the score. We got a
list of the sites, and as we expected, they were where the trouble
was worst. Naturally so; that was where the children were. There,
then, was our field as a playground committee. Why not kill two
birds with one stone, and save money by making them one? By hitching
the school and the boys' play together we should speedily get rid
of the truant.
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